Hosta

The Hostas are starting to wake up! Here are Praying Hands, Firn Line and Guacamole. Things are starting to get exciting!

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Happy New Year to everyone, I hope that you have had some Christmas cheer in these difficult times we find ourselves in.

We have been keeping quite quiet on the internet just like our Hostas we have been waiting for the eruption of the new year. Behind the scenes we have been looking after our new collections of Hostas. We currently have over 2,000 plants tucked up for the winter across 2 sites in Taunton, and 1 at Milverton. We have about 500 small/miniatures (with some starting to grow already!), with the rest being the larger varieties.

We now have over 130 varieties, many of them available for sale, whilst the remaining we are building up stock and bringing on for another year.

Some highlights for this coming year:

• Allow pre-arranged visits to our Milverton site.
• Upgrade and improve our website.
• Increase the amount of information available to our customers and friends.
• Covid permitting attend several plant fairs in the South West.
• A monthly competition during the growing season.

As mentioned before some of our Hostas are champing at the bit. Here is Hosta Ballerina getting ready to unfurl it’s leaves. I haven’t had any Hostas out at this time of year before most surprise!

Checking over the Hostas today at our Milverton site before the wind and rain has come in. They are settling down for Winter.

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Went to check our Milverton site today after all the rain and Wind over the weekend. Nothing serious to report just a little bit of tidying. Many of the Hostas are feeling the effects of Autumn, but on the whole ok. I also came across an interesting site in the cordoned off area!

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Here is the latest update on the Hosta enclosures at our Milverton site. To recap we are currently replacing, upgrading, adding and increasing the number of enclosures at our Milverton site. We originally had 4 enclosures and 1 small enclosure at this site, all based on the ground. Due to Covid and caring issues we couldn’t spend as much time as we would have like maintaining the site, taking the ducks up etc.
Our site is triangular in shape and is bounded by a council road on 1 site, a field on the other and a bi-way next to 25 acres of ancient woodland. We don’t use any slug pellets or chemicals and the fields and woods generate some monster slugs!
We originally had 2 Khaki Campbells (very small) ducks but they were struggling with the bigger stuff. So last year we purchased 2 Buff Orpingtons from a breeder near Lincoln, these are bigger and stronger ducks for the bigger stuff. Janet specifically wanted those ducks because they are beautiful and almost golden in colour. It was an epic journey getting them, but still don’t regret it.
Anyway back to the upgrades, the new enclosures are off the ground (based on pallet tables) to ease our back, reduce the slug/snail issues and allow the ducks to run underneath them. (Would you believe it ducks like eating Hosta leafs, not good for them but hey ho!)
We have increased our enclosure numbers from 5 to 8 and increased the sizes of them. I reckon we have increased our enclosure coverage by 3 to 4 times. All in preparation for receiving our new stock this Autumn.
Got some pictures for you, but will have to add more as some of the site has already changed since these were taken a day or 2 ago.

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Well there we have it, officially Autumn. Some of the Hostas had been showing Autumn leafs for a while, but we still have some performing well.
Went out this morning and took a few snaps to see if we could find something interesting.

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Busy weekend, spent the Saturday taking my eldest back to University, busy on the M5 and in Cardiff. Took about an hour to off load her stuff and then quick dash out.
Spent the Sunday upgrading enclosures and checking the 200 plus Hostas that was in the old enclosure. I should comment that I didn’t do that alone, Janet and Tegan dealt with the Hostas whilst I did the enclosure work. We have 2 enclosures left to upgrade and then the creation of 3 new enclosures for the additional stock we are hoping to bring in over this Autumn and winter, this should increase the space for Hostas at our Milverton site by between double and triple its previous amount.
Anyway whilst working this morning captured a few photographs for you to see with the dew.

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Well things are starting to feel like Autumn now. Several of the Hostas are showing signs the Captain Kirks, Praying Hands, Whirlwinds, and a lot of the Elegans’ are getting ready.

The leafs of our trees at our Milverton site are starting to drop and our Apples are about 2 to 3 weeks earlier than normal.

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I went to check something in the propagator, and thought I would look at the tiny fragment of the Patriot. Here is what it looks like, a perfectly formed mini Patriot plant, with leafs and root.

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An update on what will be our last rotation in the propagator for this season:
18 Patriots (Plus 1 really tiny one which seems to be doing well)
7 Mrs Minky ( I reckon 3 may not come to much but giving them a chance)
1 Krossa Regal (Very small just building up)
1 Geisha
1 Blue Mouse Ears (Small and building up)
1 Little Wonder (Need a bit of support time – more roots and leafs)
1 Hush Puppie (A bit like the Little Wonder here)
Will do some pictures soon.
Mike